"Yankees, Patriots, and the Un-American Way"

With Barack Obama first alluding to his Presidential ambitions on Monday Night Football, Congress' Mitchell Commission investigating baseball's doping scandal, and Arlen Specter examining the New England Patriots' indiscretions, politics and sports are intertwined now more than ever. With postseason baseball, football's return, and an election coming, it's clear that sports and politics overlap so much now that the New York Yankees and New England Patriots have even started sharing a playbook with policy-makers in Washington.

The Yankees have been following Washington, relying on shortcuts and their coffers to win. Taking a shortcut to success many Yankees used steroids, including Jason Giambi and Roger Clemens (whose forceful denials admitted guilt—we all saw "the Rocket's red glare" at those news conferences…). Along with doping, the Yankees have used their deep pockets to overpower smaller teams, poaching the best players instead of cultivating their own. This approach is an American one; in 2003, with the world against the Iraq war, we (the Yankees), took a shortcut and used foreign aid to sign players to a "coalition of the willing." Wielding financial and military might violated international law to beat Saddam. In short, the Yankees approach to baseball and the American approach to the global affairs "game" are one in the same.

Another all-American dynasty, the Patriots, has taken a similar approach. Last year's infamous "Spygate" revealed that the Patriots cheated by taping other teams' defensive practices. They also upped the score in games they would clearly win, leaving starters in to go for it on fourth down in the fourth quarter and smashing teams by an average of three touchdowns. This scorched earth attitude took cues from Capitol Hill; like the Yankees these Patriots violated written and unwritten rules, unleashing the force of a military campaign on their opponents.

Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, bellicose Patriots coach, Bill Bellichick, and ruthless Yankees owner, George Steinbrenner have rewritten the American playbook. But five years into an unjust war riddled with cheating (the $1 billion of unjustifiable charges by KBR, the contractor which provides food and housing to troops in Iraq), violations of international law and torture (at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and in secret CIA "black sites" across the globe), and abuses of power against innocent civilians (defense sub-contractor Blackwater's unwarranted murder of 17 Iraqis), Washington has led the pack.

But this playbook hasn't worked. The Yankees, the Patriots, and we, the Americans, haven't won the big game (read: war/s) for years now, and instead have generated deep antipathy; people despise the Yankees and Patriots for their methods, and America's global reputation is terribly tarnished. Today the Yankees are not in the playoffs, the Patriots seem crippled without Tom Brady, and the American economy is out for the season. The 1990s, when America had global respect, a bull economy, and an internationally-revered Chicago Bull, may be over, but in politics and sports there's always next year. So cross your fingers, sports fans, we just might have another Chicago Bull changing the playbook in 2009.